Structural sheeting technologies are many and varied. It is commonly appreciated that durability considerations, strength requirements, and intended usage(s) of structural sheeting is often contemplated when designing structural sheeting having various material properties and/or peculiar structural features. Yet, no effort to date has placed an emphasis on integrating energy storage within structural sheeting incorporated into structural elements common to everyday commodities, electronics, transportation vehicles and buildings. The ability to store energy within structures of all types that incorporate structural sheeting could have an extensive number of applications in a broad variety of industries.
Energy storage technologies are also many and varied. The two dimensions upon which most technologies are classified are energy density and power density. An energy storage device can hold a substantial amount of energy and discharge that energy over a long period of time, which is known as energy density. Conversely, an energy storage device can also hold a smaller amount of energy, but charge and discharge that energy very quickly, which is known as power density. Both of these attributes are valuable depending upon the application. At the high end of the energy density scale are technologies like compressed air, pumped water and fuel cells. Slightly lower down are batteries, from primary batteries with alkaline chemistries, to secondary (rechargeable) batteries. At the high end of the power density continuum are capacitors, which charge and discharge on the scale of fractions of a second. Yet, of all the existing energy storage devices, little thought has been put into their mechanical strength and toughness, flexibility, and associated thickness. An energy storage device with these properties could have an extensive number of useful applications in a large variety of industries.
Thus, structural sheeting that is functional as an energy storage device and exhibits high energy density while providing structural functionality such as mechanical flexibility, puncture tolerance, and/or physical toughness would be well received in the art.